


cast our sail and grab the oars

by Patchouli (lifelesslyndsey)



Series: Brothers Grim [22]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ben's POV, Hurt/Comfort, It's one of the Fifty States, Its pee, Kinks, M/M, Nightmares, Power Play, Pseudo-Incest, Seriously - hard line kinks, Topping from the bottom but you're on top, adoptive incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 13:49:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20341156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifelesslyndsey/pseuds/Patchouli
Summary: He can’t quite put into words what it is he’s learned but he knows in the blood-filled beating of his very real heart - living feels a little easier than it did before.





	cast our sail and grab the oars

**Author's Note:**

> Across the Sea by The Sweeplings is an absolutely stunning song. 
> 
> Follow me down to the shore  
We can cast our sail and grab the oars  
We could float away and not come back  
Darling if you'd just take my hand

Ben is not always a peaceful sleeper. He’d say he was just out of practice, but in truth - he’d never been an easy sleeper. His mind is not his alone, and the Horror bleeds into his brain more in the weakness of dreams. And so often, he lays awake, staring at the ceiling where the shadows shift and shudder. He’s not sure he needs sleep, just like he’s not certain he needs food, and so sometimes - peace is nice. 

It’s rare they all sleep together. Too hot. Too cramped. They’re three fully grown men, and rare is the mattress that can accommodate _that _. Klaus has already slipped away, to sprawl out on the cool sheets of his own bed, leaving Diego and Ben in a tangle. 

Diego sleeps like he’s the one with tentacles, every limb he has wrapped tight around Ben’s body. It’s...soothing, in a way. To be so tangibly tethered. It’s hard to feel like you’ll float away with a hundred and seventy-five pounds of Diego _laying on top of you. _

Diego...

Diego is _also _not a peaceful sleeper. 

Worse though - he’s impossible to wake. 

And so Ben just hushes him, with little shh shh shh’s, and pets at his hair, fingertips lingering on that terrible scar, there. “Hey, shh - it’s okay. It’s _okay _.” 

And it is okay, of course, it’s okay. Ben often suspects Diego’s killed more people than any of them, save perhaps for Five. And while he has Five’s pragmatic approach to necessary death, he lacks the edge of indifference.

(Not to say that Five is _indifferent _. He’s just had longer to cope.)

And so his dreams are red, and there’s a knife beneath their pillows. 

“Diego,” Ben hums, kissing the corner of Diego’s mouth. His body goes rigid, arms locking tight and it hurts, how hard he’s holding Ben. It _hurts _. Ben could just leave, _pop _right out, get Klaus - but no. He’d never leave Diego like this. Just like he never left Klaus. They’re brothers - they’re brothers in everything, even in this. “It’s okay. It’s _okay--- _” 

He’s not entirely sure what’s happening at first - only that the space between their sleep-sweat sticky bodies goes suddenly _hot _and _wet _. Diego’s still holding him so hard, pressing him down into the mattress with the whole of his naked body and it hits Ben like a fucking tangible _fist _. 

  
  


Diego had been a bed wetter when he’d been little. So had Vanya. Some kids just are. Some traumatized kids just are a little more. Grace had handled it like she handled everything else, with kind words and a clean house. Vanya regularly cried when it happened. 

Diego would hide. 

Sometimes for hours. 

Ben’s astounded by the sheer quantity and the heat of it, where it accumulates in his belly button, warm enough to _burn _. It drips down his stomach and soaks into the sheets where they press against his body. He can feel it, where it seeps and spreads, damp against the small of his back, against his arms where they press into his bed, against his thighs. It’s a _lot _. He can feel it on his thighs, he can _smell _it. 

“Shhh,” he hushes Diego again, with the last little breath left in his lungs. “Diego---Diego---you have to let go. It’s okay, it’s okay.” All the little wounded noises Diego makes in his sleep are breaking his heart, but he can’t breathe and---and---

And that’s when Diego wakes up. Startles awake like someones struck him and Ben sees it on his face as he scrambles to disentangle himself from Ben. He sees it when Diego realizes just what’s happened. 

His eyes go wide in the darkroom, the glossy black of his iris made bright in the moonlight. “I---I---Ben---I---” 

And Ben’s not sure if he lets Diego go now, that he’ll ever see him again. So he does what he has too, pissy sheets and sticky skin be damned. He gets his arms around Diego, and pulls him back, crashes their bodies together so he can kiss him. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Ben murmurs, between frantic little kisses against Diego’s resistant mouth and Ben doesn’t---

He doesn’t know how to make it okay. He’s lying, it’s not okay, and he doesn’t know how to make it right. Klaus would know. Klaus always knows. Klaus would---

All Ben knows is that the second he stops kissing Diego, Diego will panic. Diego will panic and rail and launch himself from bed with that haunted, tortured look in his eye and then he’ll hide, and decompose in his misery and all Ben has to do to prevent it, is kiss him _forever _. 

  
  


And so he pushes up, with everything - putting Diego on his back is no easy feat, but Ben does, licking at his mouth, hands frantic where they sink into Diego’s hair. It’s late, and they’re only half awake, both caught up in the opposite end of the same nightmare and Ben’s so _warm _, and Diego is a real thing, a body his body knows all too well. 

He doesn’t mean to like it, doesn’t mean to fall into it. Doesn’t mean to hold Diego down against the pillows and kiss him hard and wet, the edge of teeth sinking too deep into the plush give of his brother's lip. Ben doesn't mean to shake him when Diego moves to push up, doesn't mean to force him right back into place. He doesn’t mean too - he doesn’t mean to forget what this is about. 

Because this is about Diego - and Diego’s relentless, never-ending wealth of shame that eats him up at the edges of his mind. And this is about how Ben’s just not fucking having it. 

So he’s hard - he’s fucking _hard _. Perched in Diego’s lap, curled over his sticky, naked body. It’s an acrid scent, human but _animal_, but the absence of scent changed Ben’s appreciation for such a thing and he doesn’t....he just doesn’t care. 

Because he can see it in Diego’s dark eyes, where they catch the moonlight spilling through the open curtains. He can see the first festering curl of hopelessness and Ben...

Ben swallows and gets his hands on Diego’s face. What would Klaus do? Klaus would--- Klaus would probably blow Diego. Klaus would probably lick it up; his depravity knows no bounds and he’d long ago cast aside the fetters of human shame, telling Ben in a drunken stumble - if you’re not ashamed of anything, no one can ever hurt you. Shame was the sharpest knife, and the whole world held the handle. Klaus would love it - would love the unexpected treasure of such absolute _corruption_. Ben’s not Klaus, but he thinks he understands now, what it means to them. And he thinks he knows, in that wretched, stretched and tense moment, exactly what Diego needs.

_“ _You did--- _You did so good, Gogo.” _It’s hard to say, fumbling from his mouth, but he says it, and he _feels _it. 

“Ben, I--I--didn’t---I didn’t _mean _too---” Diego _sobs _, chest heaving, all anxiety, and disgrace. Ben is not very good at this. Ben is not Klaus. He calls for Klaus in the quiet way he knows how but Klaus is asleep and--- and---Diego needs him. 

“You like it when it’s---when it’s filthy.” He kisses Diego’s mouth again, holds him in place until Diego kisses back, soft and unsure. “Don’t you like it? You---” What would Klaus say? What would--- “You can like it if you want.” He rolls his hips the best he can, and Diego’s not hard, but his hands come to rest on Ben’s hips all the same. “Do you---do you want too?” 

Diego doesn’t look sure, and Ben is just---not good at this. But---but he wants to be. He wants to be _good _. He wants to be exactly what Diego needs right now, even if what Diego needs is Klaus. Klaus would tell him --- Klaus would---

He clears his throat. “Klaus likes it.” Ben has paid witness to how much Klaus can _like_ it. Klaus can like anything under the correct circumstances - and he always like Diego, he always likes Ben. 

Diego sucks in a breath, the muscles of his stomach twitching where they press to Ben and Ben thinks---Klaus would absolutely love it. 

“We could...” And God - Ben can feel himself _dripping_, just thinking about just exactly what they could do. “We could make a mess for him.” And he feels his mouth part on a sharp little breath, imagining it. He feels himself _smile_ and watches Diego's eyes go wide. “He could find us...like this. He’d like it.” 

“F--f---fuck,” Diego hisses, but his body relaxes, very slightly, very _very_ slightly. He’s not hard, not at all and Ben just---doesn’t know what to do. “Fuck, Benny. I don’t know. I don’t---” 

Klaus would----Klaus would----

  
  


Ben drags his tongue up Diego’s face, lets his teeth scrape over his jaw and Diego---Diego shakes all over so Ben knows it’s right. “Why don’t you---” But no - Klaus would never ask like that. Never so mild. He might not ask at all. Klaus would--- they’re disgusting together, and it scares Ben...almost as much as he’s come to like it. How much he's come to like watching them together and he thinks about all the times he's watched them - all the things he's heard Klaus say. He presses his mouth to Diego’s ear and _makes _himself speak. It’s terrible, it’s terrible, the way it slithers all over his skin and makes his stomach tighten and this thighs clench and his cock _drip _. He hates it as much as he loves it; Klaus was right. _“I wanna ride you just like this _.” 

Diego whines, and presses his forehead into the curve of Ben’s neck and Ben knows---knows he’s got it right now. He’s got it right - this is what Diego needs, and he reaches out for Klaus, but Klaus won’t wake so Ben...

Ben just wants to be _good _. 

“Just like this.” He presses his hand low on Diego’s stomach, where he’s wet with piss, where it’s collected, just a little, in his belly button. The sheets _squelch _as they move, and Ben’s honestly not a hundred percent sure how he feels about it. It's not so black and white as a mouth on his cock, and he feels inexplicably older for the sudden understanding that pleasure has facets, has degrees, slow burns and forest fires. Ben's not burnt up for the cooling wetness strapped between their skin, but he's on fire for Diego. For when Diego shudders, and he knows how he feels watching Diego’s eyelashes flutter. It's good in a new way, that drips down his spine. “I’m _hard _.” 

And it’s a testament to Diego’s addled state that he finds this shocking. Ben gets hard over suggestive table legs. He’s _always _hard for his brothers. “Klaus would like it. We could...” And God - it’s still hard, even now - even after every depraved thing they’ve done. It’s _hard _to put it into words, but Diego needs words, and he needs them now, more than ever. Klaus had said - Diego appreciated a direct approach. “You wanna...Don’t you want him to find us like _this _? Just...Just absolute---absolutely _filthy _?” And even as he says it - Ben wants it. God, Ben wants it. It’s so rare that he has the opportunity to give Klaus anything he wants, anything not colored by what Ben seeks. He could give this to him. He wants too. And Diego---Diego need it. “He’d love it so much.” 

Diego rolls his hips, a tentative grind and Ben gets his fingers in Diego’s hair and _pulls _. “You like it,” he says, making Diego look at him the way Diego’s always making Ben look. It’s nothing like he’s ever done, he’s never curled his fingers so hard, but it’s good. It’s good in a way that sits low in his belly and makes Diego clench his teeth so pretty. “You---you _like _it.” 

“No, no I---” But he’s not stopping, he’s still moving, forearms braced against the pillows either side Ben’s head. “No, I---” 

“You can,” Ben tells him, very clearly. Very firmly. He can leave no room for indecision in his voice (Klaus always sounds so goddamn _confident _, when he’s telling Ben how much he wants too--- he just needs to sound confident.) “You can like it if you want too.” 

Diego hides his face in the curve of Ben’s neck, and it brings together their stomachs, and the undeniably wet heat trapped between them. “You don’t,” he says, muffled Ben’s skin. It’s all the admission Diego might enjoy it, that Ben will ever get. 

And it’s more than enough. 

Ben turns his face into Diego’s hair and feels dizzy and stupid and small and scared. “I---I like how much you like it,” Ben admits, and he understands for the first time perhaps - the nature of Diego. And a little bit, just a very little bit - the nature of himself. “I like how much I know Klaus is going to like it.” Klaus might even---

Klaus might even want to _piss _on him. Ben’s thighs clench and his stomach jump and he’s so horrified, he’s so absolutely horrified at the thought. He wants it. He--- he pulls at Diego, scrambles to tug him into place, to get his mouth on his mouth feeling frantic and wild and ---

“You fucking _like _it,” Diego gasps, pressing a kiss to Ben’s throat. “God--- _Ben _\----I---I---” 

He shoves at Diego - pushes at his shoulder until he can press him into the damp mattress. Diego lets him; God, Diego _lets _him. “Klaus,” he says, instead of any of the other things he could say. “Klaus---” His thighs are too wet to give him any leverage against Diego’s stomach--and he’s---- He’s not good at saying what he wants, he’s not good at putting it to words. But when Diego pushes up, Ben flattens a hand against his chest and puts him back against the mattress. “We’re making a mess,” he manages, more firmly than the breathless, rapid way his heart is beating. “Put---Put----” 

“A-a-anything,” Diego stutters, grabbing Ben’s hips with rough, dry palms. “Benny---please---” 

And he just has to say it - Diego won’t do anything until he says it, and Diego’s... He’s looking at Ben with big, needy eyes, and Ben knows --- 

Diego needs looking after, sometimes. He sees it, Ben sees it. Sees the way Klaus touches him, speaks to him, _loves him _. Diego needs direction, a firm hand and a bed of filth. Klaus gives him that. But Klaus isn’t here. 

“I wanna fuck you like this,” he says, pressing down against Diego with his palm as if he could hold him in place._ I wanna fuck you _, he thinks, feeling a little delirious. He’s not--- He doesn’t mean---- “I wanna ride you _just like this _.” He rolls his hips, drags his ass down Diego’s cock and everything is just so---so unexpectedly _wet _. Ben’s not sure he likes it, but he’s certain he likes how much he wants to squirm and the only soul to make sense of that tangled mess is fast asleep four rooms over. _“Help me. _” He wants to say something dirty, something Klaus might say. _Put me on your cock_, or something to that effect, but he can't - fuck, he can't. All he can say is --- all he can fucking say is ---- "_Now_!" 

Diego makes a noise like someone punched it right out of him and he picks Ben up like Ben’s nothing at all, biceps going tight, and hard beneath his tan skin. Ben’s still a little sticky, still a little open from _before _, and he sinks down with ease, inch by inch.

“Fuuuck!” Diego cries, when Ben drags a shaky hand up his stomach, smearing piss across his pale skin. It’s awful, it’s _awful _, but he’s so hard and Diego bounces him, once, rough enough to turn everything very briefly, hot and white. “Fuck,” Diego cries, weakly, all shake and shudder, as he _drags _Ben up, the pull of skin against skin everywhere they touch burning, _hurting _, hurting the way only good things do. “Fuck, Benny. _Fuck _.” 

And before Ben can rally to protest otherwise, Diego’s _picking _him up, and dropping him high on his chest. He gets his hands under Ben’s thighs, under his ass and----

And Ben barely has time to throw his hands out, to catch the headboard before he’s balls-deep in Diego’s soft-tongued, open mouth. And he is torn - fuck, he’s torn. He’s torn by the impossibly deep itch burning up below his skin, where his nerves are a light, everything too-good, all at once, the press of Diego’s tongue, the wet slide of his mouth, the back of his throat where it bumps very faintly against the head of Ben’s dick---

And the wetness of his thighs, where they frame Diego’s stubbled, sticky cheeks. Where Ben’s fucking his face, his soft open mouth, fingers curled in his hair. His_face _. A thin line of piss races down the flat of his stomach, and it’s lost just as quickly to the scruff of Diego’s beard and---- _fuck. _

“Oh. Oh---” Ben feels delirious, close to coming already, still so goddamn easy. He pulls out, almost losing it all together when Diego chases blindly, opened mouth and it’s--- it’s strange to slip his fingers into Diego’s mouth. To hook them over his bottom teeth and _pull. _He shakes him, the same way he’s watched Klaus do a thousand times and Diego gets it. He gets it with a feral, fearsome look in his eye. Ben lets his fingers slip-free and Diego relaxes his jaw, lets the tip of his tongue rest along his bottom lip and yeah - he gets it. 

He leans forward, pushing up off his thighs and eases right back into to Diego’s soft, lax mouth. It’s---- God, he’s dizzy. He throws a hand up against the headboard just as Diego moves to grasp the bars with both hands and it’s easy then - to just sink right in. To ride him like this, all soft and easy. Diego stays so still, all plush give and spit collecting and spilling at the corners of his mouth and yeah - 

“Fuck,” he hisses, when Diego chokes a little, a muffled, needy gasp. He’s---He’s going to come. He’s going to come. He’s going to _come---_

He scrambles back, so hard he’s dripping, and it doesn’t take much, just the bump of Diego’s fat bottom lip, and Ben comes across his face like the world is ending. He thinks very briefly he loses hold on this reality, fading to nothing and coming back in the same breath. 

And the sight of Diego below him, framed in Ben’s sticky thighs, is a thing that will haunt him forever. Diego’s mouth is still obediently open, come dripping pearly white from his cheek, from his beard. He won't swallow without permission, Ben thinks, feeling his tender balls twitch. Diego looks like he’s forgotten entirely how they ended up here, laying in piss, covered in come. 

And Ben...

Ben feels so fucking _good _. 

It’s awful. It’s _awful _. Ben thinks - Ben thinks he might actually hate it. It goes against all the things he fights to hold, it makes his skin crawl but at the same time... All he can think about - all he can fucking fathom - is the blissed-out, helpless, wide-eyed broken look Diego can’t hide, or the thought of Klaus walking in on them like this, finding them like this. So yeah - he hates it, God he fucking...he fucking hates it, but---- But _yeah _. 

Yeah. He might love it.

He reaches out and pushes his own come back into Diego's mouth without really thinking about it until he's petting Diego's tongue with two fingers so absently, the rhythm matches the pulse of his own heart. Diego's fucking up, just a little, to the beat, with nothing to grind against. 

How can he hate it - but love it so much?

And perhaps that’s his lot in life, to always be a model of duality, man and monster, love and hate. He doesn’t think too deeply on it as he takes his soft, spent cock in a gentle palm and _aims _. It...it shouldn’t be so easy to piss on your fucking brother, but Ben can’t imagine doing anything else in the moment. It spills down Diego’s chest, catches in his chest hair, collects in his collarbone, waterfalls down his shoulder, and the curve of his neck. He's still fucking his own mess of come across Diego's lax tongue, his thighs are still twitching, his breath still short. Ben can’t say he’s into it - the pissing thing. But he won’t lie and tell you he doesn’t like Diego like this. He won’t tell you it’s a fluke, that it’ll never happen again. He won’t say anything, because he can’t think outside this single moment like time’s come to a standstill around them. All he can think about, all he can -- see are the crystal clear tears painting trails through the piss and come on Diego’s face, as he _sobs _. 

And it feels wrong to press his hand down on Diego's throat, but it feels right to watch him close his eyes and hold so tight to the headboard his face redness and his biceps bulge. "Say his name, Gogo. C'mon." He doesn’t hold him - he’s not even really _choking _him. Ben’s not sure he even could. It’s the threat, he thinks, and he’s starting to understand. “Call for him,” Ben whispers, afraid of his own voice, of how much....how much he loves to hate this. “ _Call for him Diego _.” 

“K---Kl---Kluas,” Diego sputters, spine curling up like a bridge and Ben doesn’t know where they’re going when all he can think about is coming. “Fuck, Kluas --- please, I----” 

Ben feels the bed dip, but he already knew Klaus was there. He’d felt him in the air, at the haze of blue that eats them up. Klaus comes with waves that sparkle and shift that contrast in light and dark. Standing behind him, knees to his back, Klaus cups the underside of Ben’s upturned jaw and Ben feels inexplicable, gut-churning, startlingly, blindingly-----

_Cherished _. 

“Look at you,” Klaus breathes, with wide pupils and a pale face and Ben’s not sure where they are anymore, where they’ve gone. The world feels strange - a backdrop of hollow echoes that sound like a pulse. But Diego is a tangible thing, a force of color and warmth and life, where he lays beneath the press of Ben’s open palm. He can feel Diego’s heart, where it beats in his throat, and it matches the pulse in the hallow of the hollow - this is a _sacred _place. “Look at _both _of you.” He says nothing else and that’s how Ben knows - Klaus has come from the place where nothing exists and _they’re _in it. Ben can’t feel them inside him- because Klaus has turned them inside out. And he’s vibrating out of his skin, but all the shakes and shiver are within. 

Everything is upside down, all Alice in the Looking Glass, and Ben’s certain this is a space only Klaus could take them, all blue and breathless in the faint veneer of shade and greys. There is no color but the color of them and they are all faintly blue where Klaus touches. 

Ben’s certain he’s not high. He’s certain. But he’s floating and he knows - he’s heard the words. He’s read the books with the Yellow and Black covers, from the shelves in the Adult Self Help section at the public library, _So You Think You’re A _\---

Klaus called it subspace. 

Ben thinks it’s the void. 

They’re not dead - it’s something beyond or maybe just between that. It’s a quiet place, just the heart sound, and barely even a breath. Klaus's fingertips press into his rabid, frantic pulse, the same way Ben presses his to Diego’s and around them beats Klaus's heart and it feels like a vacuum, it feels like a veil Ben never wants to lift. 

It’s scary. 

But he likes it. 

And he thinks he understands exactly what Klaus meant when he promised Ben would love to hate it when he told Ben how much he’d come to love the things that make him squirm. Because this is awful, it’s the worst and Ben’s certain he never wants it to end. It’s built a sort of nest of indestructibility in him. He is not afraid, anymore. Not of himself, or anything else. And if he fears nothing, no one can ever hurt him. 

And perhaps Klaus sees that in his face, in the upsweep of his lashes or the way he swallows, shaky and dry, and his throat rolls against Klaus tattooed palm. He pulls Ben back, until his head tips against the tight, taut muscles of his stomach. “_ Good boy. _” 

And it’s a hot feeling that burst inside him, a slow roll of molten lava - and it’s a hot feeling that runs a river down his back, down his ass and he _jolts _so violently in Klaus's hand that he chokes himself on that _Hello _. His spine curls out, but he can still feel it, a searing stream of piss, running a course down his ass and dripping all over----

_Diego _. 

And Ben has to look - he has too. Klaus lets him slip free, and forward and there’s Diego---- 

Spine bowed, eyes closed, mouth open - the strain of his forearms, his biceps, as he holds so tightly to the headboard, the whole thing _shakes _. And Ben can feel him where he’s hard-pressed against Ben’s ass and Klaus is there, with two palms on his shoulder, leading Ben down, “C’ mon Benny - do it---” and Ben _does _, and he realizes as he bottoms out that Diego’s _waiting _for him - waiting for him to say---

But it’s hard to speak when Diego’s making all these soft, huffed, hurt little noises like he can’t breathe but Ben knows he can, and so he presses harder, feels the push back as Diego shakes all over, breathing hard through his open mouth, _uh---ah---_

And Klaus hand is back on Ben’s jaw, so soft with a thumb pressed to the corner of Ben’s mouth and Ben knows what Klaus would do - what Klaus wants him to do--- 

It’s like the living room all over again, Diego in his chair, Klaus behind him, and Ben on his knees. It’s the same but inside out and when Ben spits this time----

It splashes against the sticky mess of come and piss already wet on Diego’s face. 

And tears because Diego is _crying_ \- fucking fuck----_ Diego's crying. _Full heavy sobs that shake them both, but Ben isn't scared, Ben wants him to come. God--- He wants him to come. 

“Now,” Ben says, straining against Klaus's palm and he knows if he pulls anymore if he chokes himself any more Klaus will let go, so he doesn’t and leaves himself fluttering like a caught bird in a gentle, barely-breathless palm. “Now,” he tells Diego and Diego comes, body snapping like a broken branch and Ben---- falls. Crashes. Catches the edge of black pressing in on the edges of his vision and slips into the void in hopes that he’ll fall out the other side. 

***

He doesn’t recall waking, only blinking his eyes and finding color again. Klaus touches his face, and Ben feels warm - where he’s curled over Diego who’s barely aware. “Shhhh,” Klaus murmurs, with a furrow to his brow that suggests concern but Ben can’t scrape the two brain cells required to speak enough to ask about it so he just turns into Klaus's hand and kisses his fingertips. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” 

And when next he blinks, he’s crammed into the tiny bathtub with his back against Diego’s chest, sparkling glitter water bursting with a pinprick, faintly crackling bubbles. Klaus is pouring water of Ben’s head from that fucking teacup, while Diego breaths a soft rhythm across the curve of his throat and he feels real and solid and so fucking sleepy---

“There,” Klaus hums, pushing Ben’s wet hair from his face. “Don’t drown, okay? I’m gonna go change the sheets.” 

“But you didn’t----” And Ben reaches weekly for the robe Klaus pulled on, catching the satin floral fabric in slippery soapy fingers. “You didn’t---” 

“I don't need too,” Klaus tells him, with brevity and strange warmth. “You were really something else in there, Benny.” 

“I didn’t---” Ben tries to say but he’s not sure what he didn’t or he did right now, only that he’s gone pink in the steam, clean and warm and alive. “I didn’t want him too---” 

“I know. Fuck--- you did great. You... Shit Benny. I wish I could have seen,” Klaus tells him, with all the fiery vehemence of any man gone blind. “Fuck - I wish I could have _seen _you. I wish could have seen yourself.” 

Ben lets himself sink a little further into the waters, boney knees bobbing at the surface. Diego’s hands clench where they rest over the jutted bone of his hip. He shakes his head, hot by the thought. He never wants to see himself like that - it’s too much. 

Klaus slips out, and Diego drags the edge of his teeth just behind Ben’s ear. “Ben.” 

And the idea what Diego might want to talk about it... might want to--- discuss it----Ben _can’t _. “Yeah?” 

“Thank you.” 

Oh. _Oh _. “Of---of course.” 

***

When they stumble back to the bedroom, the messy sheets are gone and the windows open, dragging the stale scent of their own sins right out the window. Klaus has made the bed in his own linens, and they’re not clean exactly, just cleaner than the ones on the floor now. They smell like him, and a little like Diego and Ben finds it soothing, finds it comforting in a way that should make him feel guilty. But he can’t find it in him to feel anything bad, too come-drunk and stupid and soft-touched at the edges. 

Diego presses him into the mattress, arranging his limbs with more energy than Ben finds fair. “He’s real out of it.” 

Klaus must hear the same thin streak of concern in Ben’s voice. “He’s real okay,” he snorts, easing in on the other side of the bed. It’s not big enough for three people, not by an inch, and they both crowd in on Ben, walls of night and day. “Baby’s just all tuckered out after a long, hard day.” 

“Mmf,” Ben grunts, too tired to protest properly. He rolls away from Klaus, the only form of physical offense he can show, and smacks face-first into Diego’s chest. Which is fine - Ben’s tired and warm; a little high and a little empty. He’s not sure where the soft, hollow feeling comes from, but he has a sense that Klaus does. 

(And maybe Ben’s known all along, every sin and secret Klaus has unfolded like a fucking gift. Maybe Ben’s known the depth and the wealth of complex emotion and discourse that make him the trembling little _good _boy, maybe he’s always just been afraid to look at it alone, maybe that’s why it’s easy to tremble in a _Hello_palm. And maybe it’s born by anxiety, but Ben sort of lives and breaths, quite literally, for the look in Diego’s eyes as Ben holds him down and took _care _of him; Diego looked _free _. And maybe he knows it’s the _rage _that makes him so fucking hungry, so desperate to see Klaus and Diego get exactly what they want in life -even when it’s this. Maybe Ben just likes knowing exactly what they want or need of him. Maybe he likes knowing that he can give it to them - he can make them happy the way he never could please S-----)

So yeah - he feels a little hollow, a little lighter, a little freer. He lets his chest rise and fall to match Diego’s, and when Klaus slips in behind him, the press of his palm where it curls over Ben’s hip is a tangle representation of the tie that binds them. 

He thinks he might have learned something about himself - which is fucking ridiculous. He pissed on his brother. He pissed on his fucking brother, _holy shit. _He can’t quite put into words what it is he’s learned but he knows in the blood-filled beating of his very real heart - _living _feels a little easier than it did before. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Okay! 
> 
> So I didn't warn for watersports. And I really hope I don't lose readers because of it - it's never going to be featured again and I'll fucking tag it as soon as my main boo has read it. But I've been teasing this for months. 
> 
> MONTHS. 
> 
> Hi. Hi Runa. 
> 
> I said - what did I say? 
> 
> I thought you were going to guess it was this chapter when I didn't give you snippets. 
> 
> Tasteful, right? I don't expect anyone to come out liking watersports now. It's NMK - I just...
> 
> really wanted to make Diego a bedwetter, and get some Soft Daddy Ben in here. 
> 
> Huzzah. 
> 
> (im not sorry)


End file.
